


the most important thing

by braingunk



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: (This will not be finale compliant), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arkham Asylum, CRYPTMIAH, Future Fic, Jeremiah is the Joker, Just not yet, M/M, Memory Loss, Memory regain, Not Beta Read, Obsession, Obsessive Jeremiah Valeska, One-Sided Attraction, POV Bruce Wayne, POV Jeremiah Valeska, POV Outsider, Post Episode: s05e07 Ace Chemicals, Unhealthy Relationships, enemies to less aggressive enemies, post ace chemicals jeremiah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-01-25 13:39:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braingunk/pseuds/braingunk
Summary: A man wakes up in a hospital three and a half years after falling into a vat of chemicals. There's something important he needs to remember.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to the Jeremiah Discord as usual, of course. You guys are the best. 
> 
> This fic was based on a dream I had about Bruce and Cryptmiah (aka post ace Miah) holding hands. It's not as fluffy than that dream, but probably will be more so in part two.

The day he wakes up, the man kills two nurses and a janitor as he escapes from the dark room in Gotham General he’d been left to rot away in. Disorientated and covered in bloody hospital robes, he doesn’t make it more than half a block before he’s picked up by a GCPD cruiser. The cop eyes him warily in the rear view mirror and asks him what’s so funny. The man realises that his dry throat is so itchy because he’s laughing. 

The cop chucks him into the holding cell. There’s two other criminals in there with him. They glare at the man. Something about the place feels familiar. He also feels underdressed, what if - 

There’s a nagging sensation a the back of his mind. Something important. Something all consuming, lurking just underneath his consciousness. It’s worse than the itch in his throat. What can’t he remember?  _ Remember remember this isn’t just important it’s the most important thing what is it? _

“Holy crap,” says a voice on the other side of the bars. A cop with a hat and a beard and a shocked expression on his face. The man thinks he owned a hat like that once, but he doesn’t think that’s the important thing. “Is that Jeremiah Valeska? What the hell happened to his face?” The man’s head jerks up automatically, as if the name were his own. Interesting. Maybe  _ Jeremiah _ is his name. But it’s still not the important thing, he still feels on edge needing to know…  _ Something _ . He thinks he’s been here, in this cell before, asking for the important thing. But he still can’t recall what it was. 

The cop turns abruptly, yelling for Jim, whoever that is. Jeremiah - he supposes that’s his own name, even if it still feels off somehow - eyes the two criminals beside him in the cage. One of them spits at him. The other calls him a freak. 

How impolite. 

He’s already strangling the second one when the gunshot whistles just past his ear. Jeremiah wonders if it was a warning shot or if the cop had just missed. 

“Enough,” a man yells in an authoritative tone. Jeremiah (no, that still doesn’t feel right, perhaps just J for now) rolls his eyes and releases the criminal. He opens his mouth to ask them to bring him - what?  _ What’s so important? _ The man who walks down the stairs glares at J, lips pressed into a thin line under his moustache. “I ought to put you down, after what you did. You’re lucky you even survived those chemicals. God knows I would have dragged you out if it had been me there.” Jeremiah tilts his head to the side. This must be Jim.

“So we’ve met before?” J asks. His voice is raspy, and it feels like his throat is cracked. “May I some water?” The first cop, the one with the beard, laughs.

“You just killed a man right in the middle of our precinct, we’re not taking your freaking drink order, bastard-” 

“Harvey,” Jim says warningly. Harvey huffs and Jim turns back to J. “What do you mean we’ve met before?” J blinks. His eyes sting from the lights overhead. It’s been so long since they were open. But the world is almost crisp, clearer than it has been in a while. He thinks he might have needed glasses, once. But that certainly isn’t the important thing.

“Well I can’t recall. Can't remember anything, actually. But the important thing is - there’s something I need -”

“Yeah, heavy medication and a trip to Arkham,” Harvey spits venomously. 

“No!” J yells, suddenly angry that they aren’t listening.  _ They never did understand how important _ \-  He kicks the half-conscious criminal beside him, then regrets it. Not because of the yelling and pointing of guns that ensues, but because it feels off. It doesn’t suit him. If he’d have had a knife, or if he’d stepped on the man’s windpipe, that would have been much better suited. Funny, even. He glances at the cops again. Behind the two are another half a dozen, all watching him carefully, most with guns drawn. He starts to laugh. His skin moves oddly, folding unnaturally as he grins. His mouth tastes bloody and that only makes him laugh harder.

J places a foot on the man’s windpipe, then ducks as another bullet whizzes over his head, shifting his weight onto the man’s throat. The crunch under his foot is satisfying but it’s  _ still not right _ . Something is missing. The door is open and Harvey is tackling him to the ground and it’s familiar but it’s not what he needs. So he squirms, kicking up until another pair of hands is grabbing his legs and someone has pressed a gun to the back of his neck but he doesn’t care this isn’t what matters where is he where is he J needs him - 

The gun at the back of his neck goes away, and then the the handle hits is head hard. 

The laughter only stops when J’s body goes limp. 

“Lucius, call Bruce,” Jim shouts over his shoulder. Lucius is already dialling the number. 

J wakes sooner than a man who’d been hit that hard should. The cell is empty, but he can see the criminals in the cell beside him are all sitting as far away from him as possible. With nobody in range, he does the next thing he can think of and yells. It feels good to make noise on some level, even as it makes his throat feel even worse. As hoped, one of the cops comes up to the bars and bashes on them with a banton. J lunges forward, grabbing his collar and smashing his head against the bars with a satisfying thud. It happens quick enough that by the time another cop has taken aim at J, he’s pulled the dazed cop in front of him as a shield. He laughs again, a low, gravelly sound in his dry, dry throat. He pulls the officer’s head back to smash into the bars again, and again, and again. He sees the trickle of blood down the back of the cops neck and swipes a finger through it. He licks the blood of his hand experimentally and nods to himself. Not too bad. The cop whimpers, and J smashes his head back a fourth time.

“Stop!” A new voice shouts. J stops, not fully knowing why. A new figure descends the stairs from the entrance, a black outline against the white sunlight behind him. Something about the way the man’s dark trenchcoat swirls around him is so familiar _ (this is it this is it this is the thing that matters) _ as are the strides he takes towards J, self assured and righteous. None of the cops stop him. J’s finger’s twitch in the fabric of the cop’s collar. He comes close enough that J can properly see him and it finally feels like the pieces finally fall into place.

“Bruce,” he says, his voice somewhere between a hiss and a croon. For a moment Bruce just stares, face slightly pale. Perhaps J should have checked out his appearance in the mirror before he left. The shock fades and Bruce glares at him, cold and angry in a way that makes something warm pool in J’s gut. The furrow of his brow and the clench of his jaw are more defined than the last time J had seen him. He tries to think about when that was, and quick flashes of memory come back:  _ why won’t you understand, pain, you mean nothing to me, green, green, green, so green it hurt. _ He drops the cop, who slumps down to the floor.

He reaches out through the bars towards Bruce (he is always, always reaching towards Bruce). Bruce doesn’t step any closer, still too far away, just out of Jeremiah’s reach. Then the moment is shattered as cops swarm them, wrenching J’s arms back into the cage at painful angles as they drag the half dead cop towards a woman in a white coat with a stethoscope around her neck. The angry cops fill his vision, and J can’t see Bruce anymore. He snarls at them and tries to twist his arms around to hurt them, kill them for ruining the reunion. They don’t  _ matter _ . Only he and Bruce matter. 

Being tazed  _ hurts _ . His whole body jolts unnaturally and he falls to the ground. His muscles don’t stop jerking as he begins to laugh. 

“Bruce! Bruce Bruce Bruce Bruce,” J chants as the cops smack on the bars and tell him to shut the hell up, freak. Then Bruce pushes past the cops and J falls silent. 

“Stay there as long as you want if it’ll shut that freak up,” one of the cops tells Bruce, before clearing his throat. “But don’t get too close, Mr. Wayne.” 

“I won’t,” Bruce replies, not looking away from J. His voice is a little deeper than J expected, but it’s a pleasant surprise. It suits the serious man in front of him; it’s sexy, even. J slowly stands up, once again wishing he was better dressed, and smiles at Bruce. The cops back away, probably worried they’ll catch his crazy (not that J isn’t perfectly sane, of course). They’re still all watching, an unnatural silence hanging over the GCPD as both cops and criminals listen in on the man who once destroyed the city and the man who’d helped save it. 

“Hello darling,” he says and grins wide enough to split his bottom lip. His tongue darts out to lap it up. Bruce doesn’t say anything, just watches him with a carefully practised poker face. 

“What do you remember?” Bruce asks. J giggles.  _ Green, pain, the hopelessness, more green, more pain, the delightful feeling of Bruce punching his face over and over, falling and falling, more green, more pain _ . 

“I remember our last  _ dance _ together, and then falling. Nothing before or after,” he says, pulling himself flush against the bars. “But it’s enough for now. I remember the thing that matters.” 

“And what is that?” Bruce asks, taking a step closer. He’s still out of reach. He always was, wasn’t he? J beckons him closer and Bruce takes another step towards him. He feels like he’s done something similar before.

“You,” J whispers. He watches as Bruce swallows, anger and sadness flashing over his face before he tries to school his features. There’s something raw in his eyes as he looks at J now, even as he tries to keep his face neutral.

“You were unconscious for over three years,” Bruce says softly.

“Sorry it took me so long,” J says apologetically. Then he laughs at his own genuineness.

Jim arrives a moment later and pulls Bruce back. Bruce shrugs him off, glaring and reminding him that he is not a child anymore. Jim glares back and tells Bruce he knows, but that he shouldn’t stand so close to criminals like  _ Jeremiah _ . Then Jim looks at the splatters blood on the floor just outside of the cage, then up to the bloodied bars next to J.

“You’re lucky that your transportation has arrived,” Jim says darkly. “And I’m going to enjoy knowing that you’re rotting away in Arkham.” J rolls his eyes. 

They taze him again as they cuff his ankles together. Then they pull him up and start leading him towards the door. He doesn’t look away from Bruce, even as he has to look over his shoulder to see him. Then one of the cops shoves his head to look ahead and J sees red. He jerks his skull backwards into the cop’s nose. She groans and pulls back, and J kicks the back of another cop’s leg as someone punches him in the gut. He chokes on a laugh, then turns back to the man who did it. He lunges forward, sinking his teeth into the fabric on the man’s arm.

“Jeremiah!” Bruce shouts and J freezes. A worn leather glove grabs the back of his neck. “Let him go,” Bruce growls. J whimpers and unclenches his jaw. The cop steps back. Not that J notices, his eyes closed blissfully at the feeling of Bruce’s hand gripping him tight. 

“Bruce,” J sighs happily, unaware of the confused and repulsed glances the officers are shooting Bruce’s way.

“Walk,” Bruce orders, desperately avoiding eye contact with the cops who follow behind them. Bruce keeps his hand on J until he’s completely strapped into the back of the Arkham truck. J lets them lock him into place, feeling mellow in Bruce’s presence. The truck roars to life underneath them. Bruce lifts his hand and J whines in disappointment. When he looks up at Bruce, he’s still glaring at J, but his cheeks look a little flushed. J grins at him.

“Come and visit me,” he tells Bruce. “Or I’ll come and find you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I didn't get this finished before the finale, I'm going to add a bonus chapter written from an outside POV, as this chapter is from Bruce's POV!  
> Still not finale compliant (so no spoilers or anything) but I definitely think J's characterisation was influenced a little by the finale. Enjoy!

Bruce visits.

Arkham nearly fell into ruin after the bridges went down, and it looks like it’s only just beginning to recover nearly four years later. Not that it was a particularly wonderful place to begin with, Bruce thinks to himself, remembering his time with Lucius in Ed Nygma’s death trap. But it’s more than just the building’s incredibly dubious history; there’s something that hangs in the air over it. If he were superstitious, he’d say it was haunted or cursed. Considering the things that happen in Gotham these days, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch.

He’s lead by a bored looking orderly down corridor after corridor, lit only by the buzzing yellow overhead lights. The air smells funny. He thinks that if you weren’t already insane going in, you’d probably crack after a few months.

He hears Jeremiah before he sees him. Bruce is waiting outside the meeting room where the patient is meant to be secured into place before he enters. A laugh echoes down the corridor, then a few lines of an old song Bruce doesn’t recognise, then a moment’s pause. Then Jeremiah starts muttering something about green lights and don’t they know he’s got a very important guest coming can they _hurry up Bruce is waiting_. Somebody yells at him to shut the hell up and then there’s the telltale grunt of someone getting hit. Bruce runs straight past the orderly beside him in the direction of the noise.

Jeremiah’s bent double laughing when he turns the corner. One of the orderlies kicks him in the stomach.

“Stop!” Bruce shouts. The orderly turns around, not bothering to look ashamed.

“Why? You want to beat the shit out of him yourself, huh?” The orderly asks.

“Bruce,” Jeremiah sighs happily. His voice sounds off somehow, a slightly different lilt to before he’d fallen into the Chemicals. The other orderly, the one who was apparently holding Jeremiah in place for the first, scrunches up his face in disgust.

“Quiet down, freak,” he says and shoves Jeremiah forward.

The change is instant. Jeremiah’s wide grin falls and something dark glints in his eyes. He stops walking, slamming himself back into the orderly who stumbles back dazed. The other one grabs the collar of Jeremiah’s straitjacket and readies a fist to punch him. Jeremiah bares his teeth at him, looking almost feral. Bruce darts forward.

“Stop,” he snarls. Both the orderlies and Jeremiah freeze. “Calm down. I’m here,” he says to Jeremiah. It’s meant to sound like an order, but Jeremiah’s face brightens as he begins walking towards Bruce and the meeting room, the orderlies trailing behind them. Bruce knows they’re looking at him funny, but he doesn’t dwell on it. Unless Jeremiah gets loose, it’s not Bruce’s problem if the orderlies would rather speculate about why a billionaire would visit a murderer rather than actually do their job.

But Bruce’s presence seems to be enough to mellow out Jeremiah, whose aggression seemed to only have gotten worse since he’d woken from his coma. Alongside the hospital staff and police officers he’d attacked, he’d apparently given the orderlies hell every time they’d had to move him, resulting in two of them being sent to the hospital.

This man is dangerous, Bruce reminds himself as Jeremiah sits hunched in his chair, smiling up at him with lips almost as white as his face.

“I missed you,” Jeremiah sighs.

“You’ve only been here for five days,” Bruce replies. Jeremiah frowns.

“It feels like longer. I don’t exactly have much to keep myself distracted with,” he says.

“Is that why you attacked the guards?” Jeremiah pauses at the question, tilting his head to the side in thought.

“I suppose. I thought you might come sooner if I gave you a reason to,” he answers slowly. His forehead scrunches slightly as if he’s frowning. “I can’t remember much from before. But I remember that you used to stop me when I was _bad_.” Jeremiah giggles, a raspy noise that scrapes against his throat. Then he wheezes a dry cough.

“When was the last time you had anything to drink?” Bruce asks before he can stop himself. Jeremiah grins at him, all teeth. They look yellow next to his impossibly pale lips. He can feel the eyes of the orderly in the corner of the room watching him.

“ _Darling_ , I didn’t know you cared so much. A day, maybe? I don’t keep track of such things.” He twitches in his straitjacket, as if he wants to move his arms. Bruce focuses on the movement rather than the pet name. “You said you didn’t care before, didn’t you?” Jeremiah asks abruptly. The question catches Bruce off guard, quiet and vulnerable. He meets Jeremiah’s eyes.

Unbidden, Bruce remembers that night at the chemical plant, Jeremiah with a hand wrapped around his throat but not pressing hard enough to hurt him. He’d said Bruce needed him, the desperate look in his pale eyes filling Bruce’s vision as he leant over him, their faces almost touching.

He thinks about the slightly tight, pale skin on patches of his arms that still hadn’t fully healed when he’d reached into the vat to pull the man in front of him out.

“I said that because you hurt me,” Bruce says, dodging the question. He’s not sure how Jeremiah would take the reminder of Bruce’s rejection, not with how erratic his behaviour has been since he came out of the chemicals _(since long before then, if he’s honest with himself)_.

“Why would I do that?” Jeremiah mutters, more to himself than Bruce.

“Jeremiah-” Bruce starts, but gets cut off.

“That’s not my name. I’m still figuring it out but… I’m not that anymore. Just J is fine, Bruce.”

“J, then,” Bruce amends. J sighs contentedly, leaning forward to lay his head on the table as he looks up at Bruce in a way that Bruce could only describe as adoring. “If I promise to keep visiting you, will you promise to stop attacking the orderlies?” J smiles.

“Alright Bruce,” J says. “But they attempt to hurt me, may I retaliate?” Bruce hesitates. The orderly behind them clears his throat. The warmth in J’s eyes instantly gone as he glares at the orderly.

“There is a difference between defending yourself and trying to hurt people,” Bruce says slowly. J’s eyes snap back to meet his. He lifts his head from the table and smiles conspiratorially at Bruce.

“If you’re inciting inmates to fight staff, Mr Wayne-” the orderly starts to say. J jerks, half standing up and baring his teeth in a snarl that looks unnaturally like a smile. The chain connecting the back of his straitjacket to the chair pulls tight with a clang. J doesn’t even notice, his eyes remaining fixed on the orderly. He starts muttering something about the rudeness of some people, they need to _learn their place and he’s going to teach them it_ , voice growing louder as he strains against the chain and the binding of his arms.

Bruce stands, then reaches across the table to place a hand on J’s shoulder. Instantly, J stills, blinking twice and turning to Bruce. The orderly doesn’t say anything about Bruce touching an inmate.

“That’s exactly what I need you to promise you won’t do,” he says softly. J slumps back down in his seat. Bruce doesn’t move his hand off his shoulder. J nuzzles his head into Bruce’s arm like a cat, pressing his pale face into the sleeve of Bruce’s black trench coat. Bruce can feel the warmth of his breath through the fabric. Bruce brings his hand up to rest on J’s cheek and tilts his face to look up at him. The gnarled texture of J’s skin under Bruce’s palm feels strange, but not unpleasant. Not that a murderer’s face _should_ be pleasant to touch. “Will you promise me you’ll stop attacking the orderlies over nothing?” Bruce asks. It sounds much less authoritative and far more gentle than he intends.

“He was rude. To _you_ ,” J says, sounding affronted. Bruce sighs.

“That’s not a good reason to hurt somebody,” he says. J frowns, opening his mouth to disagree. Bruce strokes his thumb down J’s cheek. J’s eyelids flutter, and he gazes up at Bruce as if he’d completely forgotten what they were talking about. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Bruce is aware that this is dangerous, using J’s affection as a tool. An even smaller voice at the back of his mind reminds him that this is cruel. Bruce ignores both. “Promise me, J.”

“I promise,” J says at once. “But you need to come every day.” Bruce pulls his arm away, pretending not to notice the way J moves to follow the warmth of his retreating hand.

“I’ll come once a week,” Bruce replies.

“Every other day.”

“Twice a week.”

“Three times a week.”

“I have to run a company. Twice a week, and I’ll ask about getting you transferred to a decent cell,” Bruce says softly. J frowns, then sighs.

“I can’t deny you anything, can I?” J says, far too affectionately. “It’s a deal. I would say let’s shake on it, but…” He shrugs his shoulders inside the straitjacket.

“Thank you,” Bruce tells him.

By the end of the week, J’s been put in a padded cell with a proper mattress that he sinks into at night, watching the dark Gotham sky through the small window high up the wall.


	3. Chapter 3

Bruce Wayne comes to Arkham twice a week. Like clockwork, he signs in at 6pm on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and the orderlies have to transport their most unhinged inmate to the meeting room. The whole way there, Valeska mutters under his breath about being good this week and seeing his darling again because it’s been too long. It’s a pain in the ass, but god knows what the freak would do if Wayne didn’t visit.

Dave, the orderly who’d been in the room the first time Wayne had visited tells them that the asshole had pretty much given Valeska permission to attack them if they hit him first. In the first week none of them think it really would make a difference to someone so unhinged, so they get their punches in, savouring the way the man who nearly destroyed the city crumples with each hit. Valeska’s like a feral beast when they corner him in his plush padded cell (Wayne’s doing, of course), lashing out at them like an animal with his teeth and blunt nails.

When Wayne arrives the next week, Valeska tells him all about the guards that hurt poor little him when he was minding his own business in his cell. Fucking snitch. Andrew, who’s standing against the door watching the exchange, scoffs. Wayne turns around and _glares_ at him, then tells him that the abuse of patients is unacceptable. Valeska looks smug, then beams at Wayne when he turns to face him again.

Three guards loose their job that week.

After that, people stop hitting Jeremiah Valeska, no matter how much they think the bastard deserves it. Surprisingly, Valeska stops lashing out. He becomes a model patient, acting perfectly civil as he gets transported to therapy or the meeting room.

It becomes hard to tell who has who wrapped around their finger. If Wayne wants something from Valeska (the rich kid asks a surprising number of questions about criminal activity, apparently), all he has to do is ask and place a hand on Valeska’s shoulder. In return, Wayne brings things that slowly fill up Valeska’s cell when he the madman asks for them: makeup, stuffed animals, even food once the security team and Valeska’s therapist agrees to it.

Nobody likes being the one who has to stand inside the cell each week. They start by drawing straws, but settle into a rota after three months of bi-weekly visits. Watching Valeska’s constant attempts at flirting  - and it is flirting, no matter how adamantly Wayne ignores the pet names - is enough to make even an Arkham employee uncomfortable. When the doctor gives the okay for Valeska’s arms to just be cuffed to the table, it gets worse. The first Tuesday he can move his hands, Valeska clings on to Wayne’s the the full thirty minutes. Wayne has to pry it off him when their time runs out, and there’s a red handprint left on his skin after.

It’s almost a relief once Valeska’s therapist deems him safe enough to just watch through the glass and outside the door, trusted in Wayne’s company enough not to rip the rich boy’s head off. Almost. The orderlies don’t buy into Valeska’s good patient act, not even after four months go by without incident.

The first Saturday Wayne is late, Valeska dislocates his own thumb and throws himself across the table once they're alone. The guards stationed outside the door come running in, ready to pry the killer off Wayne.

“It’s fine,” Wayne tells them with a very strict poker face and a lap full of lunatic nuzzling at his neck. They move forward to pry him off and Valeska actually _hisses_ at them through his teeth, like he’s some kind of animal. “I’ll call you if I need assistance,” Wayne adds in that authoritative tone that only rich people can ever seem to manage.

That day, Wayne helps Valeska back into his own straitjacket; something the orderlies thank god for, because nobody wanted to get in the middle of whatever the hell _that_ was. When he exits the building, Wayne doesn’t quite look anyone in the eye - not that the staff are looking there. They’re all far too distracted by the bright red lipstick mark on his cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was shorter, but it was fun writing from an outsider POV. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this fic! I've written quite a lot for this pairing so feel free to check out some of my other fics. Thanks for reading!!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna write a second part from Bruce's POV soon. Maybe before the finale? We'll see how my first days back at school go lmao. Also although I saw the I feel pretty teaser, I haven't seen the final trailer bc spoilers, so if this seems out of character at all that's why. 
> 
> Like it? Hate it? Noticed a typo? Let me know!! And thanks for reading :)


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